In the face of a decline in Chinese tourists and an emphasis on developing economic relations in Southeast Asian countries under President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) “new southbound policy,” Tainan has begun promoting the city to Muslim tourists.
The Tainan Bureau of Economic Development announced that, starting next year, it would promote restaurants that serve food in accordance with Islamic customs.
The bureau said that 117 million Muslim tourists traveled internationally last year, accounting for 10 percent of total tourists.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications said that the majority of Muslim visitors to Taiwan come from Southeast Asian nations like Malaysia and Indonesia.
The number of Malaysian tourists has increased from 300,000 in 2011 to 430,000 last year, while Indonesian tourist numbers have increased from 156,000 to 177,000 over the same period, the department said.
The number of Muslim visitors from the Middle East has also increased by about 5,000 people, the department added.
In Tainan, the Tayih Landis Hotel, the Tainan Wei-Yat Grand Hotel and restaurant and the Silks Place Tainan Hotel have been approved for a new promotional campaign, while the Wei-Yat restaurant is a certified halal restaurant.
The department said that starting next year it would work closely with the China Muslim Association and the Industrial Development and Promotion Committee of Tainan City to assist food and beverage establishments in Tainan to obtain halal certification.
The Tainan City Government has said it would arrange training courses for interested business owners, adding that it hopes that people in the industry will be able to better understand the needs of Muslim travelers.
The city government said it hopes to compile a halal certified restaurant guide for Muslim travelers in the area.
The bureau said that nearly 400 businesses nationwide are Halal certified, adding that Tainan could be considered a “halal strategic town” with 72 certified businesses.
Businesses that can apply for halal certification include food and beverage providers and cosmetics retailers, the bureau said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching